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Between history and exegesis
Citation for published version:Goerke, A 2018, 'Between history and exegesis: The origins and transformation of the story of Muammadand Zaynab bint aš', Arabica, vol. 65, no. 1-2, pp. 31-63. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700585-12341479
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):10.1163/15700585-12341479
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1
Between History and Exegesis:
The Origins and Transformation of the Story of Muḥammad and Zaynab bint Ǧaḥš1
Andreas Görke
Abstract: This article examines the origins of the story of the Prophet Muḥammad’s
controversial marriage with Zaynab bt. Ǧaḥš as well as its transformation and reinterpretation
through the centuries. The fact that the story features in different genres of Islamic literature
as well as in non-Muslim sources allows for a reconstruction of how and where the story
emerged, how it spread and to what extent it was transformed over time. In the course of this
reconstruction, the article critically assesses different approaches to the historicity of reports
on the life of Muḥammad. With its analysis of later Muslim sources, it also illustrates
different strategies of reinterpreting and recasting traditions and shows how societal change
and different ideologies influenced the interpretation of the story.
Keywords: Zaynab bt. Ǧaḥš, Zayd b. Ḥāriṯa, Prophet Muḥammad, Qur’an, Exegesis, Sīra,
Tafsīr, Representations of Muḥammad, Historical Muḥammad, Sources for the Life of
Muḥammad, Criterion of Embarrassment
Introduction
Over the centuries both Muslims and non-Muslims have been interested in the Prophet
Muḥammad’s relationship with women. Among the relationships that have received a lot of
attention from both sides, Muḥammad’s marriage with Zaynab bt. Ǧaḥš stands out as
particularly controversial. On the one hand, this marriage seemed objectionable due to its
almost incestuous character, Zaynab being the divorced wife of Muḥammad’s own adopted
son, Zayd. On the other hand, the fact that this – problematic – marriage appeared to be
legitimised by a Qur’anic revelation raised more than an eyebrow both among his
contemporaries and later generations. But this marriage is not only interesting in terms of the
implications it has had for the image of Muḥammad, it also offers the opportunity to study the
origins of traditions about Muḥammad’s life. This question has been controversial for a long
time and, as will be shown, the story of Zaynab and Muḥammad is particularly suitable for an
enquiry into its origins. Moreover, due to its prominence and controversial character, the story
can also serve as an example of the transformation and reinterpretation of a tradition over the
course of time.
This article takes a closer look at this marriage and how it has been reflected in the Muslim
and non-Muslim literature. It focuses on two main aspects. First, it will examine the origins
1 This article is based on my paper presented at the symposium “Representations of Muḥammad”, which was
held in Edinburgh on 24th November 2015. I wish to thank my colleagues in Edinburgh as well as the
anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.
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and background of the earliest reports about this marriage and will assess to what extent these
reports are rooted in history. By doing this, it also aims to contribute to the debate over
whether it is possible to establish facts about the historical Muḥammad and how this could be
done. It will in particular examine two methods that have commonly been used to argue in
favour or against the historicity of reports: the criterion of embarrassment and the influence of
Jewish and Christian stories on the biography of Muḥammad. Secondly, the article aims to
examine how Muslims and non-Muslims over the course of time have dealt with this
controversial topic, which seems to put Muḥammad in a bad light. The analysis of the later
tradition provides an insight into different approaches to the topic. It also allows us to assess
modern treatments of the topic by highlighting their conscious selection of arguments that had
been advanced and developed over the centuries.
The Islamic sources on the life of Muḥammad can best be described as collections or
compilations made up of individual, usually rather short, reports. While the sources mostly
date from the third/ninth century and later, they claim to contain older material. Traditions
relating to the life of Muḥammad can be found in various types of sources, such as the sīra or
maġāzī literature (dealing with the biography of Muḥammad), the ḥadīṯ literature (dealing
with the normative behaviour and sayings of Muḥammad), or the tafsīr literature (concerned
with the explanation of the Qur’ān, which is thought to occasionally refer to the life of
Muḥammad). Although these fields seem to have been more or less independent disciplines
from a very early time,2 they often contain similar or related material, and several traditions
on the life of Muḥammad can be found in all of these genres.
For the study of both the life of Muḥammad and the development of the biographical tradition
about him, the crucial question is where and when these traditions originated and how they
were shaped and transformed in the course of the transmission. Previous studies have
established different sources of origin, of which four seem to account for the majority of the
reports.
The first of these sources consists of recollections and memories of actual events. While there
have been some scholars who argued that Muḥammad is not a historical figure,3 the evidence
leaves little room for doubt that he existed and was active as a prophet in Arabia at the
beginning of the 7th century CE.4 And if Muḥammad indeed existed and played a prominent
role, there must have been people who remembered and related events from his life. The most
ardent upholder of this view was probably William Montgomery Watt, who argued for the
reliability of a significant part of the sources in several of his works, the tendentious shaping
2 See e.g. Roberto Tottoli, “Interrelations and Boundaries between Tafsīr and Hadith Literature: The Exegesis of
Mālik b. Anas’s Muwaṭṭaʾ and Classical Qur’anic commentaries”, in Tafsīr and Islamic Intellectual History:
Exploring the Boundaries of a Genre, ed. Andreas Görke and Johanna Pink, Oxford, Oxford University Press,
2014, p. 147-171; Andreas Görke, “The relationship between maghāzī and ḥadīth in early Islamic scholarship”,
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 74/2 (2011), p. 171-185. 3 Yehuda D. Nevo & Judith Koren, Crossroads to Islam: The origins of the Arab religion and the Arab state,
Amherst, Prometheus, 2003, p. 11. 4 See e.g. Patricia Crone, “What do we actually know about Mohammed” (www
.opendemocracy.net/faith-europe_islam/mohammed_3866.jsp, accessed 25 January 2017); Fred Donner,
Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginings of Islamic Historical Writing, Princeton, Darwin Press, 1998, p.
25-30, 286-289.
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of some of the material notwithstanding.5 After the fundamental criticism of this position by
John Wansbrough,6 Patricia Crone and Michael Cook,7 amongst others, scholars have been
much more careful in their assessment of the sources. Nevertheless, it seems likely that the
sources contain some authentic and historical material,8 and that some key elements of an
event, for example, would have been preserved.9 In some cases it might even be possible to
unearth details from the very early layers of a tradition, apparently unaffected by later
tendentious shaping.10
A second possible source can be seen in the Qur’an and the exegetical speculation about
Qur’anic verses that were assumed to relate to the life of Muḥammad. The Qur’an appears to
refer to events in the life of Muḥammad in a number of cases, and Muslim scholars have
made use of these verses to gain information about the events in question. However, the
Qur’an as a rule is not very explicit about these or other events and rather alludes to them than
narrate them. Often the allusions can be interpreted in different ways, and in several cases it is
not entirely clear whether a verse actually refers to Muḥammad or not.11 It is therefore
possible that some stories that eventually were incorporated in the biography of Muḥammad
are in fact not based on actual events from his life, but rather on exegetical speculation and a
misinterpretation of verses. Patricia Crone made this very explicit in her book Meccan Trade
and the Rise of Islam:
From what has been said, it should be plain that much of the apparently historical
tradition is in fact of exegetical origin. Thus the story of Hāshim and his journeys owes
its existence to Sūrat Quraysh, for all that it is in historical rather than exegetical works
that it survives. Similarly, the numerous historical events said to have triggered a
revelation (the raid at Nakhla, the battle of Badr, the oath of allegiance at Ḥudaybiyya,
Muḥammad’s encounters with munāfiqūn, and so forth) are likely to owe at least some
of their features, occasionally their very existence to the Qurʾān.12
A third important source are debates in which legal scholars or theologians were engaging
during the first two or three centuries, and in which they developed different legal or
5 See e.g. W. Montgomery Watt, “The reliability of Ibn-Isḥāq’s sources”, in La vie du Prophète Mahomet:
Colloque de Strasbourg (octobre 1980), ed. T. Fahd, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1983, p. 31-43. 6 John Wansbrough, The sectarian milieu: content and composition of Islamic salvation history, Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 1978. 7 Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, Hagarism: the making of the Islamic world, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1977; Patricia Crone, Meccan trade and the rise of Islam, Princeton, Princeton University
Press, 1987. 8 See e.g. Fred M. Donner, Narratives of Islamic origins: the beginnings of Islamic historical writing, Princeton,
Darwin Press, 1998. 9 See e.g. Gregor Schoeler, Charakter und Authentie der muslimischen Überlieferung über das Leben
Mohammeds, Berlin, de Gruyter, 1996, p. 167; Andreas Görke and Gregor Schoeler, Die ältesten Berichte über
das Leben Muḥammads: Das Korpus ʿUrwa ibn az-Zubair, Princeton, Darwin Press, 2008, p. 279-280. 10 See e.g. M.J. Kister, “‘A Bag of Meat: A Study of an Early Ḥadīth”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and
African Studies, 33/2 (1970), p. 267-275. 11 Cf. Andrew Rippin, “Muḥammad in the Qurʾān: Reading Scripture in the 21st Century”, in The Biography of
Muḥammad: The Issue of the Sources, ed. Harald Motzki, Leiden, Brill, 2000, p. 298-309. 12 Crone, Meccan trade, p. 214-215; see also Marco Schöller, Exegetisches Denken und Prophetenbiographie:
Eine quellenkritische Analyse der Sīra-Überlieferung zu Muḥammads Konflikt mit den Juden, Wiesbaden,
Harrassowitz, 1998, p. 128-133, 463-464.
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dogmatic positions. To bolster their arguments and lend them more authority, they would
among other things point to the alleged precedents set by the Prophet and provide reports to
this effect, reports which – occasionally or frequently – may just have been invented. This
view was first advanced by Ignaz Goldziher13 and further developed by, among others, Joseph
Schacht.14 Some scholars of Islam argued that the whole biography of Muḥammad is made up
of exegetical and legal traditions, chronologically rearranged.15 Even those who argued for the
existence of genuine historical material in the early Islamic tradition admitted that some of the
material originated in legal debates, while maintaining that not every legally relevant tradition
has to be invented. Albrecht Noth, for example, distinguished three types of historical
traditions with legal content: those that contained genuine historical facts of legal relevance,
those in which historical facts or developments were transformed in a way that allows to draw
legal conclusions, and those that were pure fiction, invented to bolster a legal claim with
historical evidence.16
Finally, a fourth possible origin would be stories of other provenance that were adapted and
retold as relating to Muḥammad. These would, for example, be related by public preachers
(quṣṣāṣ), several of whom were also reciters of the Qur’an and were involved in the teaching
and interpretation of the Qur’an.17 There are a number of studies that show how biblical
stories about Abraham, Moses, or David were used as models for episodes in the life of
Muḥammad, but stories of other origin could likewise have served as literary models.18
It is likely that material from each of these sources was incorporated into the biography of
Muḥammad, and the evidence for each of these processes is compelling. However, it is
difficult and highly controversial to establish to what extent each of these sources contributed
to the formation of the biography of Muḥammad. The question, then, is whether it is possible
to find out where a report about Muḥammad originated, and if it is based on historical
recollection, exegetical speculation, legal and dogmatic debates or literary adaptation. If the
biography of Muḥammad indeed includes material from all of these sources, the only means
of answering this question is a detailed study of each report about the life of Muḥammad
individually.
Muḥammad’s marriage with Zaynab seems to be particularly suitable for such an analysis, as
the story not only features in a number of reports in different genres, but is also alluded to in
13 Ignaz Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, vol. ii, Halle, Max Niemeyer, 1890, p. 1-273. 14 See e.g. Joseph Schacht, “A Revaluation of Islamic Traditions”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great
Britain and Ireland, 2 (1949), p. 143-154, in particular p. 150-151. 15 Henri Lammens, “Qoran et tradition, comment fut composée la vie de Mahomed”, Recherches de Science
Religieuse 1, 1910, 27-51; Carl Heinrich Becker, “Prinzipielles zu Lammens’ Sīrastudien”, Der Islam 4, 1913, p.
262-269; See also Crone, Meccan Trade, p. 215, where she states that some of the material that is not of
exegetical origin “is legal and doctrinal ḥadīth in historical guise”. 16 Albrecht Noth, “Zum Verhältnis von Recht und Geschichte im Islam”, Saeculum, 26 (1975), p. 343. 17 Lyall R. Armstrong, The Quṣṣāṣ of Early Islam, Leiden, Brill, 2017, p. 76-77. 18 P. Jensen, “Das Leben Muhammeds und die David-Sage”, Der Islam 12/1-2 (1922), p. 84-97; David
Emmanuel Singh, “Muḥammad ‘The Prophet like Moses’”, Journal of Ecumenical Studies 43/4 (2008), p. 558;
Uri Rubin, The Eye of the Beholder: The Life of Muḥammad as viewed by the early Muslims, Princeton, Darwin
Press, 1995; Hartmut Bobzin, “The ‘Seal of the Prophets’: towards an Understanding of Muhammad’s
Prophethood”, in The Qurʾān in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾānic Milieu, ed.
Angelika Neuwirth, Nicolai Sinai and Michael Marx, Leiden, Brill, 2010, 565-583.
5
the Qur’an, in Sura 33, 37. The Qur’anic verse furthermore presents the case as a legal
precedent, which allows us to also investigate the field of legal literature. And, finally, a
number of recent studies have drawn attention to the parallels between this story and stories of
a Jewish or Christian background, in particular to the story of David and Bathsheba,19 but also
to the story of Abraham, Ishmael and the latter’s wives,20 the story of the marriages of
Hosea,21 and the story of Joseph and Mary.22
Let us first have a look at how the topic has been dealt with in previous scholarship and then
proceed to an examination of the sources themselves. The topic has extensively been treated
in the field of the biography of the Prophet. A typical presentation of the story can, for
example, be found in W. Montgomery Watt’s book ‘Muḥammad – Prophet and Statesmen’.23
He writes:
Zaynab was Muḥammad’s cousin, being the daughter of one of his father’s sisters. At
the time of the Hijrah she was probably a widow and emigrated to Medina, presumably
along with her brothers who were also Muslim. There she was forced by Muḥammad,
against her will, to marry his adopted son, Zayd ibn-Ḥārithah. In the course of the year
626 Muḥammad called at Zayd’s house to talk to him. Zayd was out, but he saw Zaynab
scantily clad, and is supposed to have been smitten by love for her. He went away
saying to himself ‘Praise be to God, praise to the Manager of Hearts!’ Zaynab told Zayd
about Muḥammad’s visit, his refusal to enter and his cryptic utterance. At once Zayd
went to Muḥammad and offered to divorce Zaynab, but Muḥammad told him to keep
her. After this, however, life with Zaynab became unbearable for Zayd, and he divorced
her. When her ‘waiting period’ was complete, a marriage with Muḥammad was
arranged. This was justified by a verse of the Qurʾān […].
Watt is not alone in presenting the outline of the story along these lines. Almost all Western
biographies of Muḥammad retell the story in the same manner,24 and this is also how it is
19 Ze’ev Maghen, “Intertwined Triangles: Remarks on the Relationship between two Prophetic Scandals”,
Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 33 (2007), p. 17-92; id., “Davidic Motifs in the Biography of
Muḥammad”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 35 (2008), p. 91-139; David S. Powers, Muḥammad is not
the Father of any of your Men: The Making of the Last Prophet, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press,
2009, p. 123-124, 144-145; id., Zayd, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014, p. 42-43, 46-47;
Gordon Nickel, “Muqātil on Zayd and Zaynab”, in Islamic Studies Today: Essays in Honor of Andrew Rippin,
ed. Majid Daneshagar and Walid Saleh, Leiden, Brill, 2017, p. 43-61. 20 Powers, Muḥammad, p. 138-143; id., Zayd, p. 43-44, 47-48. 21 Hartwig Hirschfeld, New Researches into the Composition and Exegesis of the Qoran, London, Royal Asiatic
Society, 1902, p. 121-122. 22 Powers, Muḥammad, p. 124-127, 132-133. Powers suggests that the figure of Zayd, including his marriage
with Zaynab, the subsequent divorce and Muḥammad’s marriage with Zaynab, is entirely built on different
biblical models. For a critical review of this work, see Walid Saleh, “Review Article: Muḥammad is Not the
Father of Any of Your Men: The Making of the Last Prophet, by David S. Powers”, Comparative Islamic Studies
6/1-2 (2010), p. 251-264. 23 W. Montgomery Watt, Muḥammad: Prophet and Statesman, London: Oxford University Press, 1961, p. 156-
157; cf. id., Muhammad at Medina, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1956, p. 329-330. 24 See for example: Tor Andrae, Mohammed: Sein Leben und Glaube, Göttingen, Vanderhoek & Ruprecht, 1932,
p. 124-125; Rudi Paret, Mohammed und der Koran, Stuttgart, Kohlhammer, 61985, p. 158-159; Maurice
Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Mahomet, Paris, Éditions Albin Michel, 1957, p. 245; Maxime Rodinson, Mohammed,
transl. Anne Carter, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1973, p. 205; Martin Lings, Muhammad: His Life Based on the
Earliest Sources, Cambridge, Islamic Texts Society, 1991, p. 212-213; Martin Forward, Muhammad: A Short
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presented in all three editions of the Encylopaedia of Islam: Muḥammad sees Zaynab in the
house of his adopted son, falls in love, and Zayd divorces her so that Muḥammad can marry
her.25 In most biographies of Muḥammad, these events are depicted as historical facts.
Sometimes this is explicitly based on the argument that a tradition such as this would never
have been preserved if it did not have some basis in historical fact.26 This line of argument,
termed the ‘criterion of embarrassment’ and adopted from the historical Jesus research, has in
fact often been applied to argue for this historicity of some events in the life of Muḥammad.
On the other hand, a number of recent publications, focusing mostly on the exegetical
tradition, have highlighted the parallels between this story and the biblical story of David and
Bathsheba (2 Sam 11). Peter Jensen was the first to draw the attention to a number of
significant parallels between the biographies of David and Muḥammad and concluded that the
biography of the latter was modelled on that of the former.27 He did, however, not include the
story of David and Bathsheba. This comparison was then done in detail by Ze’ev Maghen,
who identified a large number of parallels.28 The most relevant for our purpose are neatly
summarised by Maghen:
The temporal and spiritual leader of his community inadvertently catches sight of his
loyal servant’s wife in a state of undress, while the servant himself is absent from home.
He is enraptured by her, and in the denouement, the woman becomes the leader’s wife
and her first husband is martyred on the battlefield.29
Maghen himself admits that there are also significant differences between the two stories,30
and other scholars likewise pointed to these.31 Parallels between the story of Zayd, Zaynab,
and Muḥammad and other biblical stories have also been noted,32 and they have led Powers
do argue that entire story is a literary fiction, a fabula, invented to support the doctrine of
Muḥammad being the last prophet.33
We see two conflicting arguments in place here. Based on the criterion of embarrassment one
has to assume that the story about the encounter between Muḥammad and Zaynab is
historical, as it presents Muḥammad in such a negative light that it cannot have been invented
Biography, Oxford, Oneworld, 1997, p. 84-85; Karen Armstong, Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet,
London, Phoenix Press, 2001, p. 196; ead., Muhammad: A Prophet for our Time, New York, Harper Collins,
2006, p. 167; Hans Jansen, Mohammed: Eine Biographie, transl. Marlene Müller-Haas, München, C.H. Beck,
2008, p. 108; Tilman Nagel, Mohammed: Leben und Legende, München, Oldenbourg 2008, p. 793, n. 156; id.,
Allahs Liebling: Ursprung und Erscheinungsformen des Mohammedglaubens, München, Oldenbourg, 2008, p.
44; 25 V. Vacca, “Zainab bint Djaḥsh”, EI; C.E. Bosworth, “Zaynab bt. Djaḥsh”, EI²; David S. Powers, “Adoption”,
Encyclopaedia of Islam THREE. 26 See e.g. Andrae, Mohammed, p. 125; Forward, Muhammad, p. 85. 27 Jensen, “Das Leben Muhammeds”. 28 Maghen, “Intertwined triangels”; id. “Davidic motifs”. 29 Maghen, “Intertwined triangels”, p. 20; id. “Davidic motifs”, p. 129. See also Powers, Muḥammad, p. 144-
145. 30 Maghen, “Intertwined triangels”, p. 20; id. “Davidic motifs”, p. 129. 31 Bobzin, “The ‘Seal of the Prophets’”, p. 576. Fred Donner, “Review of David S. Powers, Zayd”, Critical
Research in Religion 3/1 (2015), p. 121-122. 32 Powers, Muḥammad, p. 124-127, 132-133, 138-143; ibid., Zayd, p. 43-44, 47-48. 33 Powers, Muḥammad, p. 38, 120, 148, 231.
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by Muslims. On the other hand, the parallels between the stories of Muḥammad and Zaynab
on the one side and David and Bathsheba on the other could best be explained by a literary
adaptation. Is it a matter of personal taste which of these arguments is more convincing? Or is
it possible to decide the matter? To answer this question, we have to examine the sources on
the topic in more detail.
The sources for the story of Muḥammad and Zaynab
Most of the studies cited above – those dealing with the Zaynab story in the context of the
biography of Muḥammad as well as those discussing it in the context of the exegetical
tradition and biblical parallels – take a holistic view of the sources.34 They take information
from different sources, namely the Qur’an and traditions from exegetical or historical works,
and either harmonise the traditions or combine individual elements from them. By doing this,
they disregard the fact that the treatment of the same material in different genres (and indeed
in different works of the same genre) may differ and may provide insight into the origins and
the development of the tradition. It therefore seems useful to discuss the different sources
individually.
As indicated before, a passage of the Qur’an is traditionally assumed to refer to this marriage,
namely Kor 33, 37. There has been some debate in scholarship whether the passage including
this verse, namely Kor 33, 36-40, might be a later addition to the text.35 However, there is
hardly any evidence to substantiate this claim, and the assumption that the passage was
inserted at a later time poses more problems than it solves.36 Unless there emerges any
34 The only study I am aware of that discusses the earliest sources individually, albeit with a different focus than
this article, is Ayşe Başol, “Sure 33 al-Aḥzāb 37 – eine quellenkritische Untersuchung“, forthcoming in Ayşe
Başol and Ömer Özsoy (eds), Aufsätze zu Sure 33 al-Aḥzāb, (Frankfurter Schriften zum Islam. Islam im
Diskurs), Berlin, EB Verlag, 2017. 35 Powers argues that the whole passage Kor. 33, 36-40 was inserted at a later stage to support the case that
Muḥammad was the last prophet: Powers, Muḥammad, p. 35-71. For him, Kor 33, 37 should be seen as “a sacred
legend modeled on earlier biblical narratives” (Muḥammad, p. 120), the original function of which was “to
support the theological doctrine of the finality of prophecy” (ibid., p. 148), and “its true purpose was to create a
narrative space in which Muḥammad could say to Zayd, ‘I am not your father.’” (Ibid., p. 231). The whole
passage would have been “added to the Qurʾān during the generation following the Prophet’s death in 11/632.”
(Ibid., p. 71). Powers is not the first to suggest that Kor. 33, 37, or indeed the whole passage, might be later
insertions. See e.g. Hartwig Hirschfeld, Beiträge zur Erklärung des Ḳorân, Leipzig, Otto Schulze, 1886, p. 71.
Claude Gilliot regards the passage and the traditions relating to it as an example for a strategy of secrecy
(“stratégie du secret ou de l’ambiguïtée”), aimed at obfuscating the problematic nature of the sura and its
individual elements: Claude Gilliot, “Miscellanea coranica I”, Arabica 59 (2012), 122. 36 The insertion, according to Powers, would have to be accompanied by changes to other verses as well, namely
Kor 4, 12, Kor 4, 126, and Kor 33, 6 (Powers, Muḥammad, p. 228-231). While later insertions in the text of the
Qur’an cannot be excluded per se (although no evidence for this has so far been found), Powers’ scenario, which
cannot be discussed here in detail, poses several problems. The idea that the whole story Zayd, Zaynab and
Muḥammad was only invented to support the abolition of adoption and the repudiation of Zayd, which were
necessary prerequisites for the doctrine that Muḥammad was the last prophet, seems far-fetched. Both the
abolition of adoption and the repudiation of Zayd could have easily been done without any recourse to marital
relationships between Zayd, Zaynab, and Muḥammad. In fact, the repudiation of Zayd together with the abolition
of adoption in general can much easier be explained in the context of the birth of Muḥammad’s grandchildren
Ḥasan and Ḥusayn around that time. On this see Mohammad-Ali Amir Moezzi’s review of Powers’ Zayd in
Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 43 (2016), p. 371-379.
8
evidence for the claim that these verses were inserted at a later stage, it thus seems reasonable
to regard them as an original part of the Qur’anic text.
The verse referring to the marriage of Muḥammad and Zaynab, Kor 33, 37, reads:
And when you said to him whom God had blessed and you had favoured, ‘Keep your
wife to yourself, and fear God,’ and you were concealing within yourself what God
should reveal, fearing other men; and God has better right for you to fear Him. So when
Zayd had accomplished what he would of her, then We gave her in marriage to you so
that there should not be any fault in the believers touching the wives of their adopted
sons, when they have accomplished what they would of them; and God’s commandment
must be performed.37
There are a number of observations to be made on this verse. Firstly, the addressee indeed
seems to be Muḥammad. The incident referred to is too specific to be understood as
addressing the reader or listener in general, and at the end of the Qur’anic passage of which
this verse forms a part, Kor 33, 36-40, Muḥammad is explicitly referred to by his name
(“Muḥammad is not the father of any of your men…”). The verse can therefore justifiably be
viewed in relation to his life. Secondly, we can notice that while Zayd is mentioned by name
in the verse, his wife is not (although it is generally agreed in the Muslim tradition that the
woman referred to is Zaynab). We do not learn why Muḥammad advised Zayd to keep his
wife or what he concealed within himself. We also do not learn why Zayd eventually did
divorce Zaynab. But we are provided with a reason for the marriage between Muḥammad and
Zaynab: to allow men to marry divorced women of their adopted sons.
We had already observed that it is not uncommon for the Qur’an to refer to events rather than
narrate them; this is indeed characteristic of the text. It is rather the reference to Zayd which is
exceptional, making him one of only two of Muḥammad’s contemporaries to be mentioned by
name in the Qur’an (if one considers Abū Lahab in Sura 111:1 to be the name of an actual
person).
We see, however, that the encounter between Muḥammad and Zaynab, which according to the
prevalent view was the reason for Zayd’s divorce from Zaynab, is not mentioned in the
Qur’an. But it does feature in several accounts of the marriage that can be found in historical
works, biographical dictionaries and Qur’anic commentaries.
The famous historian, jurist and Qur’an commentator, Muḥammad b. Ǧarīr al-Ṭabarī (d.
310/923), for example, records the following tradition in his world history:
According to Yūnus b. ʿAbd al-Aʿlā – Ibn Wahb – Ibn Zayd, who said: The messenger
of God had married Zayd b. Ḥārithah to Zaynab bt. Jaḥsh, his paternal aunt’s daughter.
One day the Messenger of God went out looking for Zayd. Now there was a covering of
haircloth over the doorway, but the wind had lifted the covering so that the doorway
was uncovered. Zaynab was in her chamber, undressed, and admiration for her entered
37 Translations from the Qur’an follow Arthur J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted, London, Oxford University
Press, 1964, with some modifications.
9
the heart of the Prophet. After that happened, she was made unattractive to the other
man. So he came and said, ‘Messenger of God, I want to separate myself from my
companion.’ Muḥammad asked: ‘What is wrong? Has anything on her part disquieted
you?’ ‘No, by God,’ replied Zayd, ‘nothing she has done has disquieted me, Messenger
of God, nor have I seen anything but good.’ The messenger of God said to him, ‘Keep
your wife to yourself, and fear God.’ That is [the meaning] of the Word of God: ‘And
when you said unto him on whom God has conferred favor “keep your wife to yourself,
and fear God.” And you did hide in your mind that which God was to bring to light.’
You did hide in your mind [the thought] that ‘if he separates himself from her, I will
marry her.’38
Is it possible to establish when and where this tradition was brought into circulation? And
what can this tell us about the historicity of the events narrated? To answer these questions,
we need to closely examine the evidence that we have for the circulation of this tradition.
Let us first turn our attention to the biography of the Prophet, the sīra or maġāzī literature. If
the early Muslims found this to be a memorable event in the life of their prophet, there should
be evidence for it in the biographical literature on Muḥammad. But there is little mention of it.
There is a tradition similar in its outline to the one quoted above in Yūnus b. Bukayr’s (d.
199/815) recension of Ibn Isḥāq’s biography of the prophet, in the chapter on the wives of the
prophet.39 Ibn Bukayr in his recension added material from other authorities to the traditions
he relates from Ibn Isḥāq, and he could thus justifiably be regarded as an author of his own
right.40 The tradition in question is among those that Ibn Bukayr does not relate from Ibn
Isḥāq, but rather on the authority of Abū Salama, the mawlā of al-Šaʿbī from al-Šaʿbī. The
slightly younger Ibn Saʿd (d. 230/844) adduces another similar tradition on the authority of
his teacher al-Wāqidī (d. 207/822), who was himself the author of a famous biography of the
Prophet, from ʿAbdallāh b. ʿĀmir al-Aslamī from Ibn Ḥabbān.41 However, this information
cannot be found in al-Wāqidī’s biography of the Prophet itself, and Ibn Saʿd likewise does not
adduce it in his description of the life of Muḥammad, but only in the biographical entry on
Zaynab bt. Ǧahš in the volume on women. It seems very likely that Ibn Saʿd took the tradition
from al-Wāqidī’s now lost biographical dictionary, which is said to have served as a model
and basis for Ibn Saʿd’s work. Al-Ṭabarī in his history and al-Ḥākim al-Nīsābūrī relate the
same tradition with minor variants on the authority of Muḥammad b. ʿUmar (al-Wāqidī) with
the same isnād.42
If we take a closer look, we can see that the tradition does not seem to have featured in the
biography of the Prophet before the end of the 2nd/8th or the beginning of the 3rd/9th century.
38 Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīḫ al-Ṭabarī: Tārīḫ al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, ed. Muḥammad Abū l-Faḍl Ibrāhīm, Cairo: Dār al-
maʿārif, 1961, vol. ii, p. 563-564; I follow the translation of Michael Fishbein here: The History of al- Ṭabarī:
The Victory of Islam (vol. viii), Albany, State University of New York Press, 1997, p. 4. 39 Ibn Isḥāq, Sīrat Ibn Isḥāq al-musammāt bi-kitāb al-mubtadaʾ wa-l-mabʿaṯ wa-l-maġāzī, ed. Muḥammad
Ḥamīdullāh, Fez, Maʿhad al-dirāsāt wa-l-abḥaṯ li-l-taʿrīb, 1967, p. 244. 40 Schoeler, Charakter und Authentie, p. 50-51. 41 Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā, Beirut, Dār Ṣadir, n.d. vol. viii, p. 101-102. 42 Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīḫ, vol. ii, p. 562-563; al-Ḥākim al-Nīsābūrī, al-Mustadrak ʿalā l-ṣaḥīḥayn, ed. Muṣṭafā ʿAbd
al-Qādir ʿAṭā, Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2002, vol. iv, p. 25.
10
Thus the most important author of a biography of a Prophet, Ibn Isḥāq, who died in 150/767,
does not mention the marriage at all – it does not occur in any recension of his work –,
although he relates the stories of some other marriages of Muḥammad, such as those with
Ḫadīǧa, Ṣafiyya bt. Huyayy, and Maymūna. The story is also never traced back to any of the
early authorities in the field, such as Abān b. ʿUṯmān, Šurahbīl b. Saʿīd, ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr,
Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab, Wahb b. Munabbih, Āṣim b. ʿUmar, Ibn Šihāb al-Zuhrī, ʿAbdallāh b.
Abī Bakr, or Mūsā b. ʿUqba. It is only around the beginning of the 3rd/9th century that this
tradition finds entry into the biography of Muḥammad. Apparently it was first only discussed
in biographical reports about the wives of the prophet. This is also where we can find it in the
Kitāb al-Muḥabbar of Ibn Ḥabīb (d. 245/860), who tells the story with a similar outline,43 and
in al-Balāḏurī’s (d. 279/892) Ansāb al-Ašrāf, who gives a short account of the incident.44 It
seems that only from al-Ṭabarī’s time onward was the story included in the accounts of
Muḥammad’s life himself.
Let us next turn to the legal literature and the major ḥadīṯ collections. We have seen that the
Qur’anic verse seems to indicate that the marriage of Muḥammad to Zaynab is linked to the
permission to marry divorced wives of adopted sons. But adoption was abolished altogether in
the emerging Islamic community – supposedly around the time this verse had been revealed –
and as a consequence this topic is not dealt with at all in the legal literature.45 The marriage
between Muḥammad and Zaynab does feature in the ḥadīṯ collections, but mainly because of
two aspects: on the one hand it is reported that the marriage was accompanied by a splendid
and grand celebration.46 On the other hand this marriage is said to have been the occasion for
the revelation of the verse ordering the wives of the Prophet to wear the veil (Kor 33, 53).
Some versions of this ḥadīṯ also implicitly link it to the revelation of Kor 33, 37 without,
however, citing it: they state that Zaynab, after Zayd divorced her and her waiting period had
passed, did not want to marry Muḥammad before receiving a hint from God, but then
Muḥammad received a revelation. The ḥadīṯ then continues with describing the wedding
celebration and the revelation of Kor 33, 53. This tradition is always traced back through
Sulaymān b. al-Muġīra from Ṯābit from Anas.47 Another widespread tradition reports that
Zayd complained about Zaynab, but Muḥammad told him to keep his wife, on which occasion
Kor 33, 37 was revealed. This tradition is traced back through Ḥammād b. Zayd from Ṯābit
from Anas.48 There is one version of this ḥadīṯ that also includes the story of the encounter
43 Ibn Ḥabīb, Kitāb al-Muḥabbar, ed. Ilse Lichtenstädter, Hyderabad, Dāʾirat al-maʿārif al-ʿuṯmāniyya, 1942, p.
85-86. 44 Al-Balāḏurī, Ansāb al-Ašrāf, vol. i, ed. Muḥammad Ḥamīdullāh, Cairo, Dār al-maʿārif, 1959, p. 434. 45 See Ella Landau-Tasseron, “Adoption, acknowledgement of paternity and false genealogical claims in Arabian
and Islamic societies”, BSOAS 66/2 (2003), p. 169. The fact that the questions of adoption in general and the
status of divorced wives of adopted sons in particular are not dealt with in the legal literature and the ḥadīṯ also
bears witness to the early date of the codification of the Qur’an. As adoption apparently was abolished during the
lifetime of Muḥammad, it would make no sense to later insert verses referring to this practice. 46 See e.g. Muslim b. al-Ḥaǧǧāǧ, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim bi-šarḥ al-Nawawī, Cairo, al-Maṭbaʻah al-Miṣriyya bi-l-Azhar,
1929, vol. ix, p. 229; al-Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿǧam al-kabīr, ed. Ḥamdī ʿAbd al-Maǧīd al-Salafī, Cairo, Maktabat Ibn
Taymiyya, n.d., vol. xxiv, p. 43. 47 See e.g. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Musnad al-Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Liechtenstein, Thesaurus Islamicus
Foundation, 2008, vol. v, p. 2756 [iii, p. 195f.]; Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, vol. ix, p. 227-229. 48 See e.g. al-Tirmiḏī, Sunan al-Tirmiḏī wa-huwa al-ǧāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Muḥammad ʿUṯmān,
Beirut, Dār al-fikr, ²1974, vol. v, p. 34.
11
between Zaynab and Muḥammad. It can only be found in Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s (d. 241/855)
Musnad,49 and this also seems to be the earliest occasion where the story of the encounter
between Muḥammad and Zaynab is related in the ḥadīṯ corpus. In this version, Muḥammad
comes to Zayd’s house and sees Zaynab, before the ḥadīṯ continues – in line with the other
variants – with Zayd complaining about her and the revelation of Kor 33, 37. As all the other
versions relate the ḥadīṯ without the encounter, it seems likely that this addition was
introduced by Muʾammal b. Ismāʿīl (d. 206/822), the transmitter between Ḥammād b. Zayd
and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, in particular as Muʾammal states that he does not remember whether
this part belonged to the ḥadīṯ or whether it was a statement of Ḥammād. There seems to be
only one other tradition in the ḥadīṯ corpus that relates the encounter story; it can be found in
al-Ṭabarānī’s (d. 360/971) al-Muʿǧam al-kabīr.50 It includes only the encounter itself and
ends with Muḥammad leaving Zaynab, continuously murmuring “praised be the one who
changes the hearts”. On the other hand, there seem to be no ḥadīṯs that elaborate on the legal
issue (the abolition of the prohibition to marry divorced wives of adopted sons).
In summary, the story of the encounter between Muḥammad and Zaynab is completely absent
from the legal literature, it is only mentioned very rarely in the ḥadīṯ, and not before the
beginning of the 3rd/9th century, and it does not include any discussion of the legal issues
involved. It likewise only emerges in the biography of the Prophet at the beginning of the
3rd/9th century, and none of the early authorities in the field transmit it. We can thus exclude
the possibility that the tradition in question emerged in either the biography of the Prophet or
in the legal literature.
What about the exegetical literature of the Qur’an? The oldest extant work, the partial
commentary of Muǧāhid b. Jabr (d. 104/722), does not deal with the verse in question, but
Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 150/767) discusses the verse along the lines we have seen.51 This is
in fact the earliest evidence of the tradition we can find in any Muslim work. The verse in
question is not covered in what has survived from Sufyān al-Ṯawrī’s (d. 161/778) or
ʿAbdallāh b. Wahb’s (d. 197/813) works,52 and it is discussed only with short annotations and
explanations in ʿAbd al-Razzāq’s (d. 211/827) Tafsīr.53 Other early Tafsīrs discuss it in
broadly similar terms to Muqātil and the biographical traditions found in the Ṭabaqāt and
historical works. Thus, for example, al-Farrāʾ (d. 207/822) tells the story accordingly,54 and
so does Yaḥyā b. Sallām (d. 200/815), who relates it on the authority of al-Kalbī (d.
146/763).55 Hūd b. Muḥakkam al-Hawwārī (d. 3rd/9th century), quotes the same tradition from
49 Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Musnad vol. v, p. 2644 [iii, p. 149f.]. 50 Al-Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿǧam al-kabīr, vol. xxiv, p. 44. 51 Muqātil b. Sulaymān, Tafsīr Muqātil b. Sulaymān, ed. Aḥmad Farīd, Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2002,
vol. iii, p. 46-48. 52 Sufyān al-Ṯawrī, Tafsīr Sufyān al-Ṯawrī, ed. Imtiyāz ʿAlī ʿAršī, Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1983. Some
verses of the Sura are discussed on p. 241-242; ʿAbdallāh b. Wahb, al-Ǧāmiʿ fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān, 3 vols, ed.
Miklos Muranyi, Beirut, Dār al-ġarb al-islāmī, 2003. Interestingly, this work does not include the tradition
quoted above that al-Ṭabarī traces back to Ibn Zayd through Ibn Wahb. 53 ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Tafsīr ʿAbd al-Razzāq, ed. Maḥmūd Muḥammad ʿAbduh, Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya,
1999, vol. iii, p. 41. 54 Al-Farrāʾ, Maʿānī al-Qurʾān, Beirut, ʿĀlam al-kutub, ³1983, vol. ii, p. 343. 55 Yaḥyā b. Sallām, Tafsīr Yaḥyā b. Sallām, ed. Hind Šalabī, Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2004, vol. ii, p.
721-722.
12
al-Kalbī,56 with very minor variants.57 Apparently Hūd took the tradition from Ibn Sallām
without acknowledging it.58 In his Tafsīr, al-Ṭabarī gives two accounts of the story, the one on
the authority of Ibn Wahb and Ibn Zayd that he also included in his Taʾrīḫ (quoted above),59
and a short anonymous account on the basis of ‘what is said’ (fī-mā ḏukira).60 Al-Qummī (d.
after 307/919) tells the story in slightly different terms: in his version, Zaynab wishes the
divorce from Zayd after her encounter with Muḥammad, but she is afraid that Muḥammad
may not marry her after the divorce. The story of the encounter itself, however, is broadly
similar to the ones above.61
It is often possible to reconstruct earlier versions of a tradition and to identify who is
responsible for its dissemination on the basis of an isnād-cum-matn analysis. However, in this
case almost all traditions in question are very poorly documented in the sources. Apart from a
few traditions in the ḥadīṯ corpus that, however, do not include the story of the encounter
between Zaynab and Muḥammad, there usually is only one line of transmission: later sources
quote the earlier works in which the traditions can first be found, rather than recording
different paths of transmission. This indicates that these traditions were not circulating
widely, as otherwise we would expect more variants of the same tradition. There also is no
overlap in the lines of transmission; each of the individual traditions is traced back via
different transmitters to a different authority. This makes an isnād-cum-matn analysis
impossible, but it also appears to be rather uncommon. None of the lines of transmission goes
back to an eyewitness; in fact, all of the alleged original narrators died after the year 100/718.
While an isnād-cum-matn analysis is futile, a close comparison of the different traditions may
nevertheless yield some further insights.
The general outline of the story in the various traditions on the topic and the discussions of the
early exegetes is quite similar, but there are some notable differences between these versions.
Thus in some versions, Zayd is present when Muḥammad visits his house,62 while in other
versions he is out for various reasons and Muḥammad encounters Zaynab alone.63 In some
variants, Muḥammad enters the house,64 in others, he catches a glimpse of her while waiting
outside,65 in yet others it is just said that he saw her, without any indication when or where
56 Hūd b. Muḥakkam, Tafsīr kitāb Allāh al-ʿazīz, ed. Belḥāǧǧ Saʿīd Šarīfī, Beirut, Dār al-ġarb al-islāmī, 1990,
vol. iii, p. 370-371. 57 While Ibn Sallām says that Muḥammad came to visit Zaynab (atā Zaynaban zāʾiran), Hūd relates that he
visited Zayd (atā Zaydan). Both versions then continue with the statement that Muḥammad saw Zaynab standing
up and liked her (fa-abṣarahā qāʾiman fa-ʿaǧabathu). It is likely that the difference is just due to a copying
mistake. See Yaḥyā b. Sallām, Tafsīr, vol. ii, p. 721; Hūd b. Muḥakkam, Tafsīr, vol. iii, p. 370. 58 See Claude Gilliot, “Der koranische Kommentar des Ibāḍiten Hūd b. Muḥkim/Muḥakkam“, Zeitschrift der
Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Supplement XI: XXVI. Deutscher Orientalistentag (1995), p. 244-
245. 59 Al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āy al-qurʾān, Cairo, Maktaba wa-maṭbaʿat Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī,
³1968, vol. xxii, p. 13. 60 Al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān, vol. xxii, p. 12. 61 Al-Qummī, Tafsīr al-Qummī, ed. Ṭayyib al-Mūsawī al-Ǧazāʾirī, Najaf, Maktabat al-Naǧaf, 1967, vol. ii, p.
172-173. 62 See e.g. Ibn Isḥāq, Sīrat Ibn Isḥāq, p. 244; Ibn Ḥabīb, Kitāb al-Muḥabbar, p. 85; 63 See e.g. Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, vol. viii, 101; al-Qummī, Tafsīr al-Qummī, vol. ii, p. 172-173; 64 See e.g. Ibn Isḥāq, Sīrat Ibn Isḥāq, p. 244; al-Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿǧam al-kabīr, vol. xxiv, p. 44. 65 See e.g. Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, vol. viii, 101;
13
this happened.66 In some versions, Zaynab is fully clothed,67 while in others she is more or
less uncovered.68 Many more differences could be adduced here, for example whether
Muḥammad and Zaynab engage in a conversation or not, how, if this is the case, Zayd learns
about it, and how he then reacts. Similarly, there are different accounts about what
Muḥammad hid in his mind – sometimes this is said to be the fact that he had fallen in love,69
or that he wishes that Zayd might divorce her,70 or that he would marry Zaynab should Zayd
divorce her.71
The most important difference between the various versions, however, is the reason for the
separation of Zayd and Zaynab. In some versions the marriage is already disrupted before
Muḥammad sees Zaynab72 – the reasons provided in these cases include Zaynab’s arrogance
due to her higher social background or her sharp tongue. In other versions, it is the encounter
between Muḥammad and Zaynab which causes the disruption and is the reason why Zayd
wants to divorce Zaynab.73 What all versions – with one exception74 – have in common,
though, is Muḥammad’s response to Zayd’s request for divorce with the words ‘Keep your
wife to yourself, and fear God’, which we can also find in the Qur’an.
The exact correspondence of the words with the Qur’anic verse is a clear sign that these
traditions are not independent of the Qur’an, but are at least influenced by the exegetical
engagement with the verse in question, if not elicited by it. This can also account for the other
differences: the versions agree on those points which are evident from the Qur’anic verse,
while they differ on those aspects where the verse is not explicit, such as why Zayd at some
point wanted to divorce Zaynab or what Muḥammad hid in his mind.
The correspondence in wording together with the observations that these traditions only
appear late – and seldom – outside the field of Qur’anic exegesis and that at least some of the
persons (such as Ibn Wahb or al-Kalbī), who figure in the lines of transmission are known for
their interest in exegesis, allows us to conclude that this story in fact is not based on a
recollection of actual events, but rather on exegetical speculation.
If that is the case, we may wonder where the additional information comes from. We can find
an answer to this question in the early exegesis as well, namely in the discussion of the verse
immediately following our verse. Kor 33, 38 reads: ‘There is no fault in the prophet, touching
what God has ordained for him – God’s wont with those who passed away before; and God’s
commandment is doom decreed.’
66 See e.g. al-Balāḏurī, Ansāb al-Ašrāf, vol. i, p. 434. 67 See e.g. Ibn Isḥāq, Sīrat Ibn Isḥāq, p. 244. 68 See e.g. Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, vol. viii, p. 101; al-Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿǧam al-kabīr, vol. xxiv, p. 44. 69 See e.g. al-Māturīdī, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm al-musammā Taʾwilāt ahl al-sunna, ed. Fāṭima Yūsuf al-
Ḫaymī, Beirut, Muʾassasat al-risāla, 2004, vol. iv, p. 121. Al-Qurṭubī, al-Ǧāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān, ed. ʿAbd
Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī, Beirut, Muʾassasat al-risāla, 2006, vol. xvii, p. 156, traces this position back
to Ibn ʿAbbās, but this cannot be verified. 70 See e.g. Muqātil b. Sulaymān, Tafsīr, vol. iii, p. 48; Al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān, vol. xxii, p. 12. 71 See e.g. al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān, vol. xxii, p. 13. 72 See e.g. al-Balāḏurī, Ansāb al-Ašrāf, vol. i, p. 434; al-Farrāʾ, Maʿānī al-Qurʾān, vol. ii, p. 343. 73 See e.g. Ibn Isḥāq, Sīrat Ibn Isḥāq, p. 244; Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, vol. viii, p. 101; Al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān, vol.
xxii, p. 13; al-Qummī, Tafsīr al-Qummī, vol. ii, p. 173. 74 Al-Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿǧam al-kabīr, vol. xxiv, p. 44.
14
We have seen that the earliest Muslim source to record the tradition of the encounter between
Muḥammad and Zaynab is Muqātil b. Sulaymān’s commentary on Kor 33, 37. In his
commentary to the following verse, Muqātil then draws a parallel to David, with whom God
had dealt similarly: just as God had brought David together with Uriah’s wife (Muqātil does
not mention the wife’s name, Bathsheba), he also brought together Muḥammad with Zayd’s
wife. Al-Kalbī in his Tafsīr seems to have made the same connection, if we trust later
commentators who relate this on the authority of al-Kalbī and Muqātil.75 The explicit
connection of the story of Muḥammad and Zaynab with that of David and Bathsheba thus
stands at the very beginning of the Muslim preoccupation with the Qur’anic verse in question.
And the encounter between David and Bathsheba contains the element that we find in the
traditions about Muḥammad’s marriage with Zaynab, but not in the Qur’an, namely the sight
of the scarcely clad or naked wife of another man. According to the Bible (2 Sam 11), King
David saw Bathsheba bathing when he walked on the roof of his palace one day, and he found
her to be very beautiful. There are in fact quite a number of episodes in the life of Muḥammad
that seem to have been inspired by biblical or non-biblical stories about David.76 While a
direct modelling of Muḥammad’s biography on that of David cannot be proven in this
instance, it seems very likely that the story of David’s encounter with Bathsheba at least was
influential in shaping the story of Muḥammad’s encounter with Zaynab.77 We thus not only
can show that the tradition is dependent on the Qur’anic text on the one hand and influenced
by the biblical tradition on the other hand, but we can also understand how and when it
became part of the Muslim tradition. Other early Tafsīr works are less explicit than Muqātil
and al-Kalbī, but also draw a connection between the marriages of Muḥammad and those of
David or Solomon.78
It may be instructive at this point to have a look at the non-Muslim sources that discuss the
matter. The earliest of these is the Fount of Knowledge of John of Damascus (d. ca. 132/750),
in the second part of which (De haeresibus) he discusses all sorts of ‘erroneous’ beliefs,
including Islam.79 One passage discusses the story of Zayd, which according to John was the
reason for Muḥammad to legislate with regard to women that “one can divorce whomsoever
he pleases, if he so wishes, and have another one.”80 He then relates the story as follows:
75 Al-Ṯaʿlabī, al-Kašf wa-l-bayān al-maʿrūf tafsīr al-Ṯaʿlabī, ed. Abū Muḥammad b. ʿĀšūr, Beirut, Dār iḥyāʾ al-
turāṯ al-ʿarabī, 2002, vol. viii, p. 49. Possibly, Ibn Ǧurayǧ (d. 150/767), a jurist and commentator of the Qur’an
likewise made this connection, as the comparison between David and the wife he married and Muḥammad and
Zaynab is also traced back to him. See al-Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿǧam al-kabīr, vol. xxiv, p. 43-44. However, this
seems to be the only instance where this comparison is traced back to him, and it is therefore impossible to verify
the isnād. 76 Jensen, “Das Leben Muhammeds”; Maghen, “Davidic motifs”. 77 The influence from other cultural and religious traditions in this time appears to be a mutual phenomenon.
Thus the story of Caedmon as told by the English monk Bede the Venerable, who lived at roughly the same time
as al-Kalbī and Muqātil, is clearly influenced by the story of Muḥammad’s first revelation. See Klaus von See,
“Caedmon und Muhammad”, Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur 112/4 (1983), p. 225-233. 78 Yaḥyā b. Sallām, Tafsīr, vol. ii, p. 723; Hūd b. Muḥakkam, Tafsīr, vol. iii, p. 371; al-Farrāʾ, Maʿānī al-Qurʾān,
vol. ii, p. 344. 79 The section dealing with Islam has been translated into English: Daniel J. Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam:
The “Heresy of the Ishmaelites”, Leiden, Brill, 1972. 80 Sahas, John of Damascus, p. 139.
15
Muhammad had a comrade named Zaid. This man had a beautiful wife with whom
Muhammad fell in love. While they were once sitting together Muhammad said to him:
“Oh you, God commanded me to take your wife”. And he replied, “You are an apostle;
do as God has told you; take my wife”. Or rather, in order to tell the story from the
beginning, he said to him: “God commanded me (to tell you) that you should divorce
your wife”; and he divorced her. Several days later he said, “But now God commanded
me that I should take her”. Then after he took her and committed adultery with her, he
made such a law: “Whosoever wills may dismiss his wife. But if, after the divorce, he
wants to return back to her let someone else marry her (first). For it is not permitted for
him to take her (back) unless she is married by somebody else. And even if a brother
divorces (his wife), let his brother marry her if he so wishes”.81
This story differs in a number of details from the Muslim accounts: the name of Zayd’s wife
is not mentioned, and the outline of the story is quite different from the one we know. There is
no mention of an encounter between Muḥammad and Zayd’s wife, and Muḥammad does not
encourage Zayd to keep his wife; on the contrary, it is Muḥammad who tells him to divorce
her. The story also does not seem to be connected to Kor 33, 37, but the references are rather
to Kor 2, 229-230 (and in the following passage to Kor 2, 223).82 Thus the whole episode is
put in the context of the practice of muḥallil (the remarriage of a woman after a divorce,
which is only allowed if she has been married to a different man in between) and the general
notion of regarding women as a tilth for their husbands. The differences to the Muslim
accounts and the lack of a reference to Kor 33, 37 strongly suggest that this account is not
derived from speculation about the meaning of that verse, nor indeed directly dependent on
the Muslim traditions about the encounter that we have seen, but must have a different
origin.83
Another early Christian version of the story is preserved in Eulogius’ (d. 859 CE) Liber
Apologeticus Martyrum. It appears to be an expansion of an earlier history of Muḥammad, of
which there is also a very brief summary in a letter from John of Seville to Paulus Alvarus of
Cordoba (c. 800-861 CE).84 Eulogius seems to have expanded the original work considerably,
possibly by incorporating information taken from John of Damascus.85 His version of the
story nevertheless shows some differences to the one related by John of Damascus. Thus he
says:
As he [i.e. Muḥammad] sweated in the great error of his prophecy, he coveted the wife
of a certain neighbour of his, Zeit by name, and subjected her to his lust. Upon learning
of this, her husband was appalled but stood aside for his prophet, whom he did not have
81 Sahas, John of Damascus, p. 139. 82 Cf. Sahas, John of Damascus, p. 91. 83 Cf. Tarek M. Muhammad, “The Byzantine Theologians on Muḥammad and Zaynab b. Jaḥsh: Marriage or
Adultery?”, Byzantoslavica 67 (2009), p. 143. 84 Robert Hoyland, Seeing Islam as others saw it: a Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian
Writings on Early Islam, Princeton, Darwin Press, 1997, p. 512-513; Janna Wasilewski, “The ‘Life of
Muhammad’ in Eulogius of Córdoba: some evidence for the transmission of Greek polemic to the Latin west”,
Early Medieval Europe 16/3 (2008), p. 334-336. 85 Wasilewski, “The ‘Life of Muhammad’ in Eulogius of Córdoba”, p. 341-353.
16
the power to contradict. And he [Muhammad] ordered it to be set down in his law, as if
it came from the voice of the Lord: “Since that woman was displeasing in Zeit’s eyes
and he repudiated her, he united her to his prophet in marriage, so that it might be an
example to others and so that in the future it might not be a sin for the faithful to do it if
they so desire.” 86
This version connects the story to Kor 33, 37 (although in a somewhat distorted rendition),
rather than Kor 2, 229-230, as did John of Damascus. Despite the clear reference to Kor 33,
37 the story is put in the context of adultery or coveting another’s wife rather than adoption.
The name of Zayd’s wife again is not mentioned, nor is there any notion of an encounter
between her and Muḥammad.
The story is also briefly discussed in the correspondence between the caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd
al-ʿAzīz (r. 99/717-101/720) and the Byzantine emperor Leo III (r. 99/717-123/741).87
Although the letters did not survive in the original, later Arabic and Armenian sources record
some of the arguments of both sides, many of which apparently date from the 8th century.88
With regard to the story of Zaynab and Muḥammad, the recorded passages seem in fact to
condense and conflate arguments from different letters. In Leo’s letter Muḥammad is depicted
as having seduced the woman Zeda. This very likely is a confusion of names; possibly what is
meant is either the wife of Zayd, or Zayd is misunderstood to be the name of the woman in
question. ʿUmar’s letter responds to the accusation that Muḥammad married a woman whom
her husband has repudiated by reference to David and the wife of Uriah. Leo’s letter contains
a response to this by making clear that David’s actions were a sin before God.89 This account
directly follows a discussion of Kor 2, 223 and thus seems to be put in the context of the
lecherousness and lewdness of Islam in general. The correspondence shows that the story at
this time was already linked to the story of David and Bathsheba, although no details of the
similarities are given, and the encounter between Muḥammad and Zaynab is not mentioned.
A somewhat different version of the story is presented in the “letter to the emir of Damascus”
from the late 3rd/9th or early 4th/10th century, allegedly written by Arethas, the bishop of
Caesarea. In this version, Muḥammad, to satisfy his lust, tells his friend named Rusulullé,
(obviously a misreading of rasūl Allāh), that God had revealed to him that Rusulullé’s wife
had committed adultery. Rusulullé replies that he would kill her. Muḥammad advises him not
to kill her but rather to divorce her and have someone else take her, by which act she would
purify herself from her adultery. After that he could take her back, cleansed from adultery. He
divorces her, and Muḥammad takes her in his presence. After defiling her and satisfying his
86 Eulogius, Liber Apologeticus Martyrum, in Jacques Paul Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. cxv, 1852, p. 16, col.
860; Cf. Stephan Hotz, Mohammed und seine Lehre in der Darstellung abendländischer Autoren vom späten 11.
bis zur Mitte des 12. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 2002, p. 19. The translation is taken from
Wasilewski, “The ‘Life of Muhammad’ in Eulogius of Córdoba”, p. 343-344. 87 Arthur Jeffery, “Ghevond’s Text of the Correspondence between ʿUmar II and Leo III”, The Harvard
Theological Review, 37/4 (1944), p. 324; Jean Marie Gaudeul, “The Correspondence between Leo and ʿUmar:
ʿUmar’s Letter Rediscovered?”, Islamochristiana 10 (1984), p. 109-157; Dominique Sourdel, “Un pamphlet
musulman anonyme d’époque abbasside contre le chrétiens”, Revue des Études Islamiques 34 (1966), p. 1-33. 88 Robert Hoyland, “The correspondence of Leo III (717-41) and ʿUmar II (717-20)”, Aram Periodical, 6/1
(1994), p. 165-177; id., Seeing Islam as others saw it, p. 490-501. 89 Hoyland, “The correspondence”, p. 170-171.
17
desires, he then tells Rusulullé to take her back, which he does. Subsequently, Muḥammad
makes this practice law.90 As in the previous Christian versions, the woman in question is not
named and, similar to the version of John of Damascus, the story seems to be linked to the
practice of muḥallil and Kor 2, 229-230, although this link is not made explicit.
How can these different accounts preserved in the Qur’an, and the early Muslim and non-
Muslim sources best be reconciled? The most likely explanation seems to be that there is
indeed an historical kernel of this story. If the story was based only on exegetical speculations
about Kor 33, 37, it is difficult to explain why most of the early Christian sources do not make
this connection and differ in a way from the Muslim sources that makes it unlikely that they
are dependent on the traditions preserved in these sources. They also link the story to other
verses of the Qur’an, namely Kor 2, 223 and 229-230, which never seems to be the case in the
Muslim traditions on Zaynab. Some version of the story therefore must have been circulating
independently of the versions based on the Qur’anic exegesis of Kor 33, 37. On the other
hand, Kor 33, 37 likewise seems to refer to a historical event, as it is difficult to imagine a
different Sitz im Leben for that verse.
If we take together the statements from the Qur’an and the information on Zayd and his wife
about which there is a consensus between the different Muslim and non-Muslim sources, the
following points appear to have some historical basis: Zayd indeed seems to have been the
adopted son of Muḥammad. The name of Zayd’s wife is less certain, as neither the Qur’an nor
the earliest non-Muslim sources say anything about it. However, there seems to be a
consensus in all Muslim sources that her name was Zaynab, and there is little reason to doubt
this information. At some point, Zayd wanted to divorce his wife, but Muḥammad was against
this separation as he was afraid of the public reaction to this. Nevertheless, Zayd divorced her
and Muḥammad subsequently married her. This was justified by reference to a change in the
status of adopted sons, or rather their divorced wives. The motivation behind these actions,
however, remains in the dark for us – just as it had been for the early commentators.
Interpretation and re-interpretation: The story of Muḥammad and Zaynab in the later
tradition
Although the tradition of the encounter between Muḥammad and Zaynab apparently emerged
from exegetical engagement with the Qur’an as shown above, it soon spread to other fields
such as the biographical and historical literature, but it never really became part of the
biography of the Prophet. While the Christian literature in the following centuries made use of
the story along the lines seen above, focusing on the lewdness of Muḥammad and his brazen
audacity to justify his deeds by divine revelations, Muslims came up with rather different
interpretations and strategies to deal with this apparently problematic story.91 In the biography
90 Armand Abel, “La lettre polémique ‘d’Aréthas’ a l’émir de Damas”, Byzantion 24 (1954), p. 364; cf.
Muhammad, “Byzantine Theologians”, p. 146. 91 Ze’ev Maghen and Gordon Nickel have also studied the later Muslim tradition on the Zaynab affair, but with a
different focus and scope. See Ze’ev Maghen, Virtues of the Flesh: Passion and Purity in early Islamic
Jurisprudence, Leiden, Brill, 2005, p. 75-110; Nickel, “Muqātil on Zayd and Zaynab”, p. 50-53.
18
of the Prophet the entire episode of Zayd, Zaynab and Muḥammad does not constitute an
essential part and could thus easily be omitted, which would in fact follow the model of the
most important early works, such as Ibn Isḥāq and al-Wāqidī. Ibn Sayyid al-Nās (d.
734/1334), for example, does not mention the incident at all, neither in the biography of
Muḥammad himself, nor in the section on the wives of the Prophet. All he says on the matter
is that Zaynab had been married to Zayd, and when he divorced her and her waiting period
was over, God married her to Muḥammad.92
In the field of tafsīr this was slightly more difficult, as the story of the encounter between
Zaynab and Muḥammad had been discussed in the context of Kor 33, 37 from the time of
Muqātil b. Sulaymān and possibly al-Kalbī, and was included in several of the early
exegetical works, such as those of al-Farrāʾ, Ibn Sallām, al-Ṭabarī, and Hūd b. Muḥakkam.
Nevertheless, as in the field of the biography of the prophet, one strategy would be not to
mention the story of the encounter and discuss the verse without going into much detail as to
its context and background. And indeed, from about the 4th/10th century we find commentaries
that do not relate this story. Ibn Abī Ḥātim (d. 327/938), for example, in his Tafsīr quotes a
number of traditions with regard to the verse, which deal with the identity of the person on
whom God and his prophet have bestowed their favour, Zayd’s wish to divorce his wife and
Muḥammad’s response, as well as the question of what Muḥammad had hidden in his heart,
but he does not mention an encounter between Muḥammad and Zaynab, nor does he indicate
that Muḥammad had fallen in love.93 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṯaʿālibī (d. 875/1471) likewise
discusses a number of aspects of the verse, but omits any reference to the story of the
encounter or to Muḥammad’s feelings.94 Nevertheless, many scholars apparently felt that they
needed to discuss the story, as it obviously was circulating and known.
A different approach, which can already be observed in the earliest exegetical preoccupation
with the verse, focuses on God’s will behind the events. Muqātil b. Sulaymān in one of the
two versions of the story he relates clearly indicates that the encounter between Muḥammad
and Zaynab as well as Muḥammad’s resulting feelings for her were God’s will and decision.95
Other scholars offer different variants of this motif, for example by insinuating that it was
God who sent the wind lifting up the curtain to reveal the scantily clad Zaynab to
Muḥammad.96
Another strategy was to come up with other traditions that would make sense of the Qur’anic
verse while at the same being less embarrassing. One such tradition is traced back to ʿAlī b.
al-Ḥusayn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn (d. 95/712), the fourth Imam of the Shiites. Initially, however, we
can only find it in Sunni sources transmitted through Sunni transmitters, and the first source to
92 Ibn Sayyid al-Nās, ʿUyūn al-athar fī funūn al-maġāzī wa-l-šamāʾil wa-l-siyar, ed. Muḥammad al-ʿĪd al-
Ḫaṭrāwī and Muḥyī al-Dīn Mastū, Medina: Maktabat dār al-turāṯ, n.d., vol. ii, p. 398. 93 Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm, ed. Asʿad Muḥammad al-Ṭayyib, Mecca, Maktabat Nizār Muṣṭafā
al-Bāz, 1997, vol. ix, p. 3134-3137. 94 Al-Ṯaʿālibī, Tafsīr al-Ṯaʿālibī al-musammā bi-l-Ǧawāhir al-ḥisān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān, ed. ʿAlī Muḥammad
Muʿawwaḍ, Beirut, Dār iḥyāʾ al-turāṯ al-ʿarabī, 1997, vol. iv, p. 348-350. 95 Muqātil b. Sulaymān, Tafsīr, vol. iii, p. 48. 96 Al-Qurṭubī, al-Ǧāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān, vol. xvii, p. 156.
19
record it seems to be al-Ṭabarī.97 In this tradition Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn states that God had
revealed to Muḥammad that Zayd was going to divorce Zaynab and that Muḥammad would
then marry her. But when Zayd told him that he wanted to divorce Zaynab, Muḥammad
ordered him to keep her, while he knew in his heart that this was in vain. This tradition over
the course of time becomes the most important, in the Sunni tradition first, but eventually also
spreading to Shiite commentaries. In Sunni commentaries, when the tradition is equipped with
an isnād at all, it is always traced back through Sufyān b. ʿUyayna from ʿAlī b. Zayd b.
Ǧadʿān from ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn.98 This tradition cannot be found in the ḥadīṯ corpus except for
later works but it is frequently cited in tafsīr works. It thus seems likely that the tradition
emerged in the exegetical domain in response to traditions such as Muqātil’s and al-Kalbī’s,
and that probably Sufyān b. ʿUyayna (d. 198/814), himself author of a tafsīr, is responsible for
its spread. On the Shiite side, neither al-Qummī (d. after 307/919) nor al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067)
record the tradition.99 The first Shiite tafsīr in which the tradition occurs seems to be the one
by al-Ṭabrisī (d. 548/1154),100 who relates the tradition on the authority of ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn,
but without giving an isnād.
A different approach to deal with the story seems first to have been taken by al-Qušayrī (d.
465/1072) in his Tafsīr101 and was then made popular by Qāḍī ʿĪyāḍ (d. 544/1149) in his
Kitāb al-Šifāʾ,102 and by his contemporary Abū Bakr b. al-ʿArabī (d. 543/1148).103 All three
argued with reference to the impeccability of the Prophet. The origin of the concept of
impeccability or infallibility (ʿiṣma) in Islam is not entirely clear, it possibly emerged with
regard to the caliphs in late Umayyad times.104 The concept then seems to have been
developed in particular in Shiite circles with regard to their Imams. The Imams – in contrast
to prophets – did not receive revelations which could correct what they were doing, but as
they were nevertheless regarded as role models, they were thought to be protected by God
from committing any wrong.105 By the time of al-Qušayrī this concept had spread and
encompassed the prophets, including Muḥammad. With the Prophet being sinless, Qāḍī ʿĪyāḍ
argued, all the stories that imply that Muḥammad had been committing any wrong in what he
did, are incorrect.
97 Al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān, vol. xxii, p. 13. 98 See e.g. al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān, vol. xxii, p. 13; al-Ḥusayn b. Masʿud al-Baġawī, Tafsīr al-Baġawī:
Maʿālim al-tanzīl, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh al-Nimr et al., Riyadh, Dār ṭayyiba, 1991, vol. vi, p. 355; Ibn
Kaṯīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm, ed. Sāmī b. Muḥammad al-Salāma, Riyadh, Dār ṭayyiba ²1999, vol. vi, p. 425. 99 The respective verses are treated in al-Qummī, Tafsīr al-Qummī, vol. ii, p. 172-175 and al-Ṭūsī, al-Tibyān fī
tafsīr al-Qurʾān, ed. Aḥmad Ḥabīb Quṣayr al-ʿĀmilī, Beirut, Dār iḥyāʾ al-turāṯ al-ʿarabī, n.d., vol. viii, p. 344-
345. 100 Al-Faḍl b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭabrisī, Maǧmaʿ al-bayān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān, ed. Hāšim al-Rasūlī al-Maḥallātī and
Faḍl Allāh al-Yazdī al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Beirut, Dār al-maʿrifa, 1986, vol. viii, p. 564. 101 ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Hawāzin al-Qušayrī, Tafsīr al-Qušayrī al-musammā Laṭāʾif al-išārāt, ed. ʿAbd al-Laṭīf
Ḥasan ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2007, vol. iii, p. 40. 102 Al-Qāḍī ʿĪyāḍ, al-Šifā, p. 876-879. 103 Abū Bakr Ibn al-ʿArabī, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭāʾ, Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-
ʿilmiyya, 2002, vol. iii, p. 576. 104 Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter,
2001-2007, vol. iv, p. 599-600. 105 Wilferd Madelung, “ʿiṣma“, EI²; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. i, p. 377.
20
Al-Qušayrī and then Qāḍī ʿĪyāḍ also seem to have been the first to discuss the close
relationship between the two protagonists. They argued that Muḥammad knew his cousin
Zaynab from a very young age and that it would be strange that he should suddenly have
fallen in love with her, as her sight must have been very familiar for him, in particular since
women at this time were not yet wearing a veil.106 Qāḍī ʿĪyāḍ goes on to say that God, by
making Zayd divorce Zaynab and Muḥammad marrying her, only wanted to abolish
adoption.107 Al-Rāzī (d. 606/1209), takes this argument slightly further when he argues that
the abolition of adoption would not have been possible without Muḥammad himself setting a
precedent.108
Ibn al-ʿArabī in his discussion of the Zaynab story also points to the weaknesses in the isnāds
of the traditions, although he still provides an outline of the story.109 Not so Ibn Kaṯīr (d.
774/1373), who challenges the problematic traditions explicitly and refrains from giving an
account of the story. He states that he will disregard the traditions related by al-Ṭabarī, Ibn
Abī Ḥātim and others on the topic as they are not sound. He also mentions the respective
tradition recorded by Ibn Ḥanbal, but likewise rejects it due to its anomaly, and does not cite
it.110
In addition to dismissing the traditions related about the event, he explains that the marriage
was concluded to clarify and to emphasise the abolition of adoption that God had declared
through the revelation of Kor 33, 4 (“And he has not made your adopted sons (adʿiyāʾakum)
your sons (abnāʾakum)”), and thus directly links Kor 33, 37 to Kor 33, 4.111
After Ibn Kaṯīr and his open challenge to the reliability of the traditions, Muḥammad’s
encounter with Zaynab is less frequently discussed in commentaries of the Qur’an, but several
scholars, among them Abū l-Suʿūd (d. 982/1574),112 al-Burūsawī (d. 1127/1715),113 and Ibn
ʿAǧība (d. 1224/1809)114 still include it in their commentaries.
These examples show the variety of interpretation and the arguments Muslims adduced when
they engaged with Kor 33, 37. They also show how discussions emerging in other fields of
Islamic learning affect the exegesis of the Qur’an – in this case for example the question of
the impeccability of the Prophet or the reliability of traditions. The different approaches
outlined above seem to have remained the main strategies employed in the premodern
discussion of the tradition – omission, holding God responsible for the events, adducing
106 Al-Qāḍī ʿĪyāḍ, al-Šifā, p. 880-881. Qāḍī ʿĪyāḍ quotes al-Qušayrī here, but the discussion does not appear in
al-Qušayrī’s Tafsīr on the passage. See also Ibn al-ʿArabī, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, vol. iii, p. 577. 107 Al-Qāḍī ʿĪyāḍ, al-Šifā, p. 881. 108 Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Tafsīr al-Faḫr al-Rāzī al-mustašhar bi-l-tafsīr al-kabīr wa-mafātiḥ al-ġayb, Beirut, Dār
al-fikr, 2005, vol. ix, p. 187. 109 Ibn al-ʿ Arabī, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, vol. iii, p. 577 (with the outline of the story on p. 575). 110 Ibn Kaṯīr, Tafsīr, vol. vi, p. 424-425. 111 Ibn Kaṯīr, Tafsīr, vol. vi, p. 426. 112 Abū l-Suʿūd, Tafsīr Abī l-Suʿūd al-musammā iršād al-ʿaql al-salīm ilā mazāyā l- qurʾān al-karīm, Beirut, Dār
iḥyāʾ al-turāṯ al-ʿarabī, n.d., vol. vii, p. 105. 113 Ismāʿīl Ḥaqqī al-Burūsawī, Rūḥ al-bayān fī tafsīr al-qurʾān, ed. ʿAbd al-Laṭīf Ḥasan ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Beirut,
Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2009, vol. vi, p. 180. 114 Ibn ʿAǧība, al-Baḥr al-madīd fī tafsīr al-qurʾān al-maǧīd, ed. ʿUmar Aḥmad al-Rāwī, Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-
ʿilmiyya, 2005, vol. vi, p. 29-30.
21
additional traditions, challenging the problematic traditions directly, arguing with the
impeccability of Muḥammad, the accepted historical background (the close relation of Zaynab
and Muḥammad), or the legal aspect mentioned in the Qur’anic text. We can find a selection
of these in most premodern works dealing with the topic.
But reinterpretation did not end at this point, and in modern times new arguments have been
brought forward. Muḥammad ʿAbduh discusses the Zaynab affair at length in an appendix to
his commentary on the first Sura, al-Fātiḥa.115 He elaborates on a number of arguments that
had been raised in the pre-modern exegesis, such as the close relationship between Zaynab
and Muḥammad at a time when there was no veil, the impeccability of the prophet, or the
weakness of the traditions that relate the incident, for which he quotes Ibn al-ʿArabī at length.
But he also advances new arguments. He says, for example, that God had publicly rebuked
Muḥammad through a revelation in a much lesser case, where no personal desires were
involved116 – how can one thus assume that the story of Zaynab is true.
The Ahmadi scholar Muhammad Ali claims that Muḥammad arranged the marriage of Zayd
and Zaynab to abolish differences of class, Zayd being a former slave, Zaynab a noble woman
from Quraysh. After this marriage failed, Muḥammad had the moral responsibility to marry
Zaynab, as he had arranged the marriage between the two in the first place.117 By marrying
her, Muḥammad also wanted to remove the stigma to which divorced women were exposed.
Ali furthermore argues against the idea that Muḥammad could have coveted Zaynab and
pressured Zayd to divorce her, as Zayd continued to be devoted to Muḥammad, which is not
conceivable had Muḥammad been actively involved in the separation. Finally, he argues that
Muḥammad could have married Zaynab when she was still young, as this is what her family
wanted. That he rather married her to Zayd shows that there was no passion involved from
Muḥammad’s side.118
Similar arguments were brought up by Muḥammad Haykal in his biography of Muḥammad,
published in the 1930s. Possibly influenced by Muhammad Ali, he argues that Muḥammad
had arranged the marriage between Zayd and Zaynab only to “whipe out racial and class
distinctions between men”.119 And to refute the point that Muḥammad fell in love, Haykal
argues that the fact that most marriages of Muḥammad remained childless indicates that these
marriages were not the result of love or attraction but rather undertaken for other reasons, as
115 Muḥammad ʿAbduh, Tafsīr sūrat al-fātiḥa, Cairo, Matbaʿat al-mawsūʿāt, 1901, p. 100-123. 116 He discusses the case of the blind Ibn Umm Maktūm, who allegedly approached the Prophet and asked him
for guidance; Muḥammad, however, turned away from him and continued to preach the leaders of the Qurayš.
This is regarded as the background for the revelation of Kor 80, 1-10, which rebukes Muḥammad for preaching
to those who were not interested in listening, while turning away from someone seeking guidance. ʿAbduh,
Tafsīr sūrat al-fātiḥa, p. 111. 117 Muhammad Ali, Muhammad the Prophet, Lahore, Ahmadiyya Anjuman-i-isha’at-i-Islam, 1924, p. 238-239. 118 Ali, Muhammad, p. 249-250. 119 Muḥammad Ḥusayn Hakal, The Life of Muḥammad, transl. Ismaʿīl Rāgī A. al Fārūqī, [Indianapolis], North
American Trust Publications, 1976, p. 295. Haykal discusses the whole episode at length with polemical attacks
on “chroniclers, orientalists, and missionaries” (p. 294). The background of these accusations and the question to
what extent they are justified have have been dealt with extensively by Antonie Wessels and need not be
reiterated here, as they do not advance new interpretations. See Antonie Wessels, A modern Biography of
Muḥammad: a critical Study of Muḥammad Ḥusayn Hakal’s Ḥayāt Muḥammad, Leiden, Brill, 1972, p. 132-141.
22
Muḥammad obviously was able to father children, even in old age.120 He also asserts that
great figures stand above the law,121 and that Muḥammad honoured women more than any
other man and raised them to the status they truly deserve.122 In addition to these new
interpretations, he also adduces a number of arguments which had already been advanced in
pre-modern commentaries, such as Muḥammad’s blood relation and familiarity with Zaynab
from her childhood, or the necessity for Muḥammad to set an example for the abolishment of
adoption.123 Sayyid Quṭb in his commentary of the Qur’an also emphasises the removal of
class distinctions and adoption as the primary motifs for the marriage of Zayd to Zaynab and
their divorce and the subsequent marriage of Muḥammad and Zaynab.124
Muhammad Hamidullah comes up with a very different interpretation of Muḥammad’s
exclamation “Praise to God, praise to Him who changes the hearts”, which forms an
important part in most of the early traditions and was usually seen as an indication that
Muḥammad had been overwhelmed by Zaynab’s beauty. Similar to Muhammad Ali,
Hamidullah argues that the marriage between Zayd and Zaynab had been an unhappy one for
some time and had been arranged to abolish the class differences. The reason for Muḥammad
to come to Zayd’s house, however, was to improve the family relations of the two, and with
his famous utterance he simply gave expression to his astonishment that Zayd did not fancy
this beautiful and charming wife of his, in particular as Zayd’s first wife, Umm Ayman, was
much older than him and also black. Despite Muḥammad’s explicit wish that Zayd keep
Zaynab, he divorced her. Only some months later [and therefore completely independent from
his visit] was Muḥammad given the order by God to marry her, and this marriage served to
abolish the previous custom of regarding adopted sons as biological sons.125
In contrast to these attempts to counter the notion that Muḥammad had been struck by
Zaynab’s beauty and had fallen in love, ʿĀʾiša ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, better known under her pen
name Bint al-Šāṭiʾ, argues to the contrary. In her book Nisāʾ al-Nabī she asserts that the story
is a proof for Muḥammad’s human nature. She regards his behaviour as exemplary and
commendable, having fallen in love but nevertheless still trying to save the marriage of Zayd
and Zaynab.126
The traditional strategies as well as some of the more recent approaches of later Muslim
scholars also served as the basis for some apologetic notions in western biographies of
Muḥammad in the 20th century. Most 19th-century works, among them the studies of Aloys
Sprenger, William Muir, and Hubert Grimme, still commented on Muḥammad’s marriage
with Zaynab with a strong polemical undertone, not very different from the earliest Christian
120 Haykal, Life of Muḥammad, p. 289-290. 121 Haykal, Life of Muḥammad, p. 287-288. 122 Haykal, Life of Muḥammad, p. 298. 123 Haykal, Life of Muḥammad, p. 297-298. 124 Sayyid Quṭb, Fī Ẓilāl al-Qurʾān, Beirut, Dār al-šurūq, ³²2003, vol. v, (part 22), p. 2868-2869. 125 Muhammad Hamidullah, Le Prophète de L’Islam, Paris, Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1959, vol. ii, p. 454-
455. 126 ʿĀʾiša ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Bint al-Šāṭiʾ, Nisāʾ al-Nabī, Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1979, p. 161; see also
Wessels, A modern Arabic biography, p. 147.
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polemics, but incorporating material from the Muslim sources.127 They gloated over
Muḥammad’s concupiscence and his impudence to justify his immoral actions with alleged
revelations from God. An exception to this attitude can be seen in Gustav Weil’s work, in
which he describes the episode rather matter-to-factly, stating that Zayd divorced Zaynab
“probably to please Muḥammad”128, and that Muḥammad’s marriage with her “elicited”
Qur’anic verses, or that these verses “appeared” or “emerged”.129
In the 20th century, we can then see attempts to explain and downplay the apparent scandal,
using some of the arguments that had emerged within the exegetical tradition. Montgomery
Watt, for example, takes up several of the arguments: that Zaynab was forced against her will
to marry Zayd, that Muḥammad was her cousin, that at her age she cannot have been overly
attractive, that the marriage also served to enforce a complete break with pre-Islamic notions
of adoption, and that in fact Muḥammad regarded the marriage “as a duty imposed on him by
God”.130 Martin Lings also refers to the already unhappy marriage of Zayd and Zaynab,131 and
so does Karen Armstrong,132 who also mentions other arguments brought forward by
Muslims: that Muḥammad and Zaynab had been cousins and knew each other from a very
young age, that Zaynab at her age probably was not very attractive anymore, and that the
incident also served to emphasise that adoption is different from a blood relationship.133 Even
Rudi Paret, although not short of critical comments regarding Muḥammad’s relationship with
Zaynab and refuting Watt’s defence, remarks that in Muḥammad’s favour one has to take into
account that Zaynab had been forced against her will to marry Zayd.134 Not all works,
however, followed suit, and some 20th-century biographies of Muḥammad retained a more
polemical stance in the matter.135
Conclusion
There are a number of conclusions that can be drawn from the above examination. First, by
comparing a large number of variants of a tradition and exploring their use in different literary
genres it is often possible to establish where and when a tradition originated, how it spread,
and how it was adapted and transformed during its transmission. As shown, this can
occasionally also be done if there are too few lines of transmission for an isnād-cum-matn
analysis to yield any relevant results. To do this, however, it is important to take into account
as many traditions as possible rather than relying on a few. In the case studied here, the
127 See for example Aloys Sprenger, Das Leben und die Lehre des Moḥammad, Berlin, Nicolai’sche
Verlagsbuchandlung, 1861-1863, vol. i, p. 400-406, vol. iii, p. 76-77; William Muir, The Life of Mahomet,
London, Smith, Elder and Co., 1858-1871, vol. iii, p. 228-232; Hubert Grimme, Mohammed: Das Leben nach
den Quellen, Münster, Aschendorff, 1892, p. 139-140. 128 Gustav Weil, Mohammed der Prophet: Sein Leben und seine Lehre, Stuttgart, Metzler, 1843, p. 145. 129 Weil, Mohammed, p. 146. 130 Watt, Muhammad at Medina, 229-231; cf. Watt, Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman, 156-159. 131 Lings, Muhammad, 213. 132 Armstrong, Muhammad: a prophet for our time, 167; Armstrong, Muhammad: a biography, 196. 133 Armstrong, Muhammad: a biography, 197. 134 Paret, Mohammed und der Koran, p. 158-159. 135 E.g. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Mahomet, 244-245.
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incorporation of early non-Muslim sources helped to establish to what extent the story of the
marriage of Muḥammad and Zaynab is likely to be rooted in history.
The careful analysis of the Muslim sources in the context of their literary genres showed that
despite the likely historicity of the marriage as such, the story of Muḥammad’s encounter with
Zaynab had its origins in the exegesis of the Qur’an and the adaptation of biblical stories
rather than in historical recollections or legal debates. The incorporation of biblical and non-
biblical material about David into the exegetical speculation on Kor 33, 37 was most likely
introduced by quṣṣāṣ who were also engaged in the interpretation of the Qur’an, such as
Muḥammad b. al-Sāʾib al-Kalbī and Muqātil b. Sulaymān. The absence of the encounter story
in the earliest Christian sources supports this finding. Once this story had become part of the
exegetical tradition, however, it was taken up in other fields and was soon accepted as fact, as
it could easily explain the allusions of the Qur’anic verse.
The increasing transfiguration and veneration of the Prophet led to different approaches to
reinterpret the story of the encounter between Muḥammad and Zaynab, and over the course of
time, Muslim scholars were quite creative in finding arguments of why this incident was not
as embarrassing as it appeared at first sight, or why it did not happen at all. It can also be seen
how societal, theological or intellectual developments impacted on the reinterpretation of the
story. We had already observed this in the pre-modern tradition when arguments such as the
impeccability of the prophet were applied to the story, and this continued in more recent
times, when Marxist, feminist, or egalitarian approaches shaped the interpretation of the story
and depicted Muḥammad as protagonist for the abolishment of racial and social differences or
for the improvement of women’s status in society.
In contrast, the non-Muslim preoccupation with this story over centuries remained rather one-
dimensional and served as basis for polemical charges against Islam. A mutual exchange of
stories and ideas is only clearly manifest in the first centuries. At this time debates between
Muslims and non-Muslims apparently allowed for the circulation of these ideas, at first
between Muslims, Christians and Jews in the region, but eventually also spreading to Europe.
In the following centuries there seems to have been very little exchange and mutual influence,
and Muslim and western discourses remain largely independent and self-enclosed. It is only in
the 20th century that we can again see an interrelation between Muslim and non-Muslim
approaches to the topic.
Finally, this study showed that the criterion of embarrassment has to be used with care. A
negative or embarrassing presentation of Muḥammad in the sources does not necessarily
imply that the underlying account must be historical. In the case studied here, the
embarrassing story seems to have been introduced to the Muslim tradition only in the first part
of the 2nd/8th century, probably aided by the quṣṣāṣ and commentators of the Qur’an Muqātil
b. Sulayman and al-Kalbī, drawing from Biblical lore. This does not mean, however, that
every story in the life of Muḥammad that shows parallels to biblical stories must have its
origin in these. Whether this is the case or not can only be decided in each individual instance
with a thorough analysis of the sources.